The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow by Anna Katharine Green (best historical fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

as the superintendent entered from the opposite door. He thought the latter looked a little queer, and in an instant he learned why.

"Was the woman you wanted a staid, elderly person, apparently a foreigner?"

"Yes—of French birth, I am told."

"Well, I guess you were all right in distrusting her. She's gone—took a notion that night work didn't agree with her and left without so much as a 'By your leave!' She must have smelt you out in some uncanny way. Too bad! She bade fair to be just the woman we wanted for a very nice part of the work."

"Do you mean she's really out of the building—that you didn't stop her——"

"I didn't know what she was up to, till she was gone. I——"

"But how did she get out? She didn't go by the employees' door for I stood there on the watch. I had seen her receive a note——"

"A note? How? Who gave it to her?"

"Some girl."

"And you saw this? How could you? Been through the work-rooms?"

"No. I saw her from this window, as I was looking diagonally across the court. She was in one of the opposite rooms over there——"

The superintendent broke into a hearty laugh.

"Fooled!" he cried. "You police detectives are a smart crowd, but our old factory with its string of useless windows has led you astray for once. You weren't looking into any one of the rooms over there. You were looking at a reflection in that useless old window behind which the elevator runs. That happens when the elevator running on that side is down. I've seen it often and laughed in my sleeve at the chance it gives me to observe on the sly how things are going on at certain benches. Many a girl has got her discharge—But no matter about that. Come here.

"The room you think you see over there—you will notice that nobody is at work in it now—is on this side of the building, and the woman you have in chase escaped by the south delivery-door. We are loading cars to-night from this side of the building, and she took a flying advantage of it. Men give way to a woman. Though there's an order against any such use of that door, you can't get one of them to hold onto a woman when she once gets it into her head to skip the premises. But she can't have gone far. This is a place of few houses and no big buildings besides the factory. If you take pains to head her off at the station, you'll be safe for to-night, and in the morning you can easily find her. Now I must go; but first, what was her offense? Theft, eh?"

"No. This woman whom we have let slip through our fingers is Madame Duclos, the mother of the girl shot in a New York museum. There is a big reward out for her recovery and detention, and——"

The superintendent stood aghast.

"Why didn't you say so? Why didn't you say so at once? I'd have had the whole troop file out before you. I'd have had——"

The detective caught at his hat.

"I wasn't aware that I had reached an age when I couldn't tell the difference between a reflection and a reality," he growled, and hurried out.

The town was a small one; and Perry would see that she didn't escape from the station. Besides, she had fled without her hat. Surely, with all this in his favor, he would soon be able to lay his hand upon her, if not to-night, certainly before another day was at an end.

XXIV FLIGHT

In leaving the building Mr. Gryce almost ran into the arms of Perry. In his anxiety to be within call, the young detective had seated himself on the steps outside and now stood ready for any emergency.

Mr. Gryce's spirits rose as he saw him there. The great door leading to the elevator opened not twenty feet to the left of him. Perhaps Perry had seen the woman and could tell which way she ran. Questions followed, rapid and to the purpose. Perry had seen a woman flash by. But she seemed to be in company with a man. He had not been able to see either clearly.

"Which way were they heading?" asked Mr. Gryce.

Perry told him.

It would look as though they were making for the station. Alarmed at the idea, Mr. Gryce stepped down into the road and endeavored to pierce the darkness in that direction. All he could see were the station lights. Everything else was in shadow. The night hung over all, and had it not been for the grinding of machinery in their rear, the silence would have been just as marked.

"Perry, is the way rough between here and the station—I mean, rough for me?"

"Not very, if you keep in the road."

"Run ahead, then, and learn how soon the next train is due—any train, going north or going south—I don't care which. If it is soon, look for a middle-aged woman in a striped dress, and if you can't prevent her getting on, without a fracas, follow her yourself and never quit her—telegraphing me at the first opportunity. Run."

Perry gave a leap and was soon swallowed up in the darkness which was intense as soon as he had passed beyond the glare from the factory. Mr. Gryce followed after, moving as quickly as he dared. It was not far to the station platform, but in his anxiety it seemed a mile; nor did he breathe with ease till he saw a flying shadow come between him and the station lights and knew that Perry had reached the platform.

It was just at the hour when the fewest trains pass, and Mr. Gryce was himself across the tracks and on the platform before a far-off whistle warned him that one was approaching. Looking hastily around, he saw Perry hurrying up behind him.

"No one," said he. "No such person around."

They waited. The train came in, stopped, took on two unimportant passengers and rushed away north.

"I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to stay here, Perry. It would be so easy for her to board one of these night trains and buy a ticket from the conductor."

But as he spoke he paused, and gripping Perry's arm, turned his ear to listen.

"A boat," said he. "A small boat leaving shore."

It was so. They could hear the dip of the oars distinctly in the quiet which had followed the departure of the train. No other sound but that was in the air, and it struck cold upon one old heart.

"It is she! I'm sure of it," muttered Gryce.

"The man across the river has warned her—sent a boat for her, perhaps. Run down to the point and see if there is anyone there who saw her go."

Perry slid into the night, and Mr. Gryce stood listening. The quiet dip of the oars was growing fainter every instant. The boat was rapidly withdrawing, carrying with it all hope of securing off-hand this desirable witness.

To be sure, there was nothing very serious in this. He had only to telephone across the river to have the woman detained till he could reach her himself in the early morning. Yet he felt unaccountably disturbed and anxious. For all his many experiences and a record which should have made him immune from the ordinary disappointments of life, he had never, or so it seemed to him, felt more thoroughly depressed or weary of the work which had given him occupation for more years than he liked to number, than in the few minutes of solitary waiting, with his face toward the river and the sense of some impending doom settling slowly over his aged heart.

But he was still too much the successful detective to allow his disheartenment to be seen by his admiring subordinate. As the latter approached, the old man's countenance brightened, and nothing could have been more deceptive than the calmness he displayed when the fellow reported that he had just been talking to a man who had recognized the boat and the oarsman. It was the same boat and the same oarsman that had brought them over earlier in the day. He had made an extra trip at this most unusual hour, for the express purpose of taking this woman back.

"I suppose there is no possibility of your drumming up anyone to row us over in time to catch them?"

"None in the least. I have inquired."

"Then follow me into the station. I have a few messages to send."

Among these messages was a peremptory one to Sweetwater.

Morning! and an early crossing to the other side. Here a surprise awaited them. They found, on inquiry, that the man responsible for Madame's flitting was not, as they had supposed, the hotel proprietor, but Phil himself, the good-natured, easily-imposed-upon ferryman, on whose sympathies she had worked during their first short passage from one shore to the other. Perhaps a little money had helped to deepen this impression; one never knows.

But this was not all. The woman was gone. She had fled the town on foot before they were able to locate Phil, who had not made shore at his usual place but at some point up the river about which they knew nothing. When he finally showed up, it was almost daybreak.

"Where is he now?"

"At home, or ought to be."

"Show me the house."

In ten minutes the two were face to face.

The result was not altogether satisfactory to the detective. Though he used all his skill in his manipulation of this kind-hearted ferryman, he got very little from him but the plain fact that the woman insisted upon taking to the road when she heard that the train-service had stopped; that he could not persuade her to wait till daylight or to listen for a moment to what he had to say of the danger and terrors awaiting her in the darkness, and the awful loneliness of the hills. She didn't fear nature even at its worst, and she knew these hills better than many who had lived among them for years. She was bound to go, and she went.

This was six hours ago. Asked to explain the interest he had shown in her, it soon became evident that he was in complete ignorance of her identity. He had simply, on their first trip over, seen that she was middle-aged, suffering and much too good and kind to be followed up by enemies and wicked police officials. True, he had rowed them over in her pursuit in the early part of the day, but that was because he had not known their business. When on returning he had learned it, he made up his mind to help her out with a warning even if it kept him up all night. He had not expected to bring her back with him, but she had insisted upon his doing so, saying that she had friends in the mountains who would look after her. He saw that she was dreadfully in earnest, for she had not stopped to get her hat and would not have had so much as an extra stitch with her if she had not taken the precaution to hide a bag of things somewhere in the bushes near the factory, in anticipation of some such emergency. And he couldn't resist her. She made him think of a sister of his who had had a dreadful time of it in the world and was now well out of it, thank God!

When the ferryman heard that a reward of hundreds of dollars was waiting for the man who succeeded in bringing her before the police officials in New York, he betrayed some chagrin, but even this did not last. He was soon declaring with heartfelt earnestness that he didn't care anything about that. It was peace of mind he wanted, and not money.

When Mr. Gryce left him, it was with an even slower step than usual. Peace of mind! How about